HP Enterprise Services and Blue Shield of California have signed a five-year agreement, which will enable Blue Shield to offer new services that enhance efficiencies and improve affordability of health care for its customers.
Under the contract, HP will continue providing technology infrastructure and applications support to Blue Shield and also will continue providing Applications Development and Management Services for more than 100 Blue Shield core administrative data and corporate systems.
In addition, HP also will provide Applications Services using its global delivery system to connect existing centres of excellence with software professionals across Blue Shield projects.
The Blue Shield systems reside on mainframe, midrange servers hosted in a secure HP data centre supported by HP Managed Mainframe Services and HP Server Management Services.
The HP Continuity Services provide a disaster-recovery strategy with data reflected in primary and secondary sites for Backup and Restore.
HP Enterprise Services Healthcare and Life Sciences Industry vice-president Sue Arthur said healthcare reform and rising costs are driving transformation across the insurance industry, requiring Blue Shield to focus more on streamlining and standardising to adapt to market demands.
"Our strong relationship with Blue Shield enables us to support their business transformational goals and help them remain focused on delivering quality, affordable health care coverage to the people of California," said Arthur.
Blue Shield of California senior vice-president and chief information officer Elinor MacKinnon said in an industry facing constant change, Blue Shield remain committed to improving service to customers, providers and employers while keeping costs down.
"HP is uniquely positioned to provide the hardware, software and services we need to deliver new products at a lower cost to our customers throughout California," said MacKinnon.
